Talk:Gospel

@Achar Sva Please stop trying to delete huge swathes of reliably sourced material you seem to disagree with. My claim about the Gospels being written within eyewitness lifetimes is supported by Bas van Os's statistical analysis, published by T&T Clark, and the renowned Ed Sanders's classic book on the historical Jesus. Scholarship assumes that the Gospels rely on oral traditions and memories of Jesus (Ehrman 2012). In fact, as far as I can tell there are no major works ever arguing or disagreeing with my claims, let alone a consensus. Also much of the material you blanked is not related to eyewitnesses, but you removed them without cause regardless. Can you provide any sources for the consensus you assert? Silverfish2024 (talk) 02:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Silverfish, your additions to the article (and they are editions - the article has been stable without them for a very long time)tle ignore the scholarly consensus in favour of an extreme Evangelical hypothesis. The consensus is more sophisticated, and is summarised in the article as follows:

In the immediate aftermath of Jesus' death, his followers expected him to return at any moment, certainly within their own lifetimes, and in consequence there was little motivation to write anything down for future generations, but as eyewitnesses began to die, and as the missionary needs of the church grew, there was an increasing demand and need for written versions of the founder's life and teachings.[56] The stages of this process can be summarized as follows:[57]

• Oral traditions – stories and sayings passed on largely as separate self-contained units, not in any order;
• Written collections of miracle stories, parables, sayings, etc., with oral tradition continuing alongside these;
• Written proto-gospels preceding and serving as sources for the gospels – the dedicatory preface of Luke, for example, testifies to the existence of previous accounts of the life of Jesus.[58]
• Gospels formed by combining proto-gospels, written collections, and still-current oral tradition.

You can find the sourcing in the article. I hope this clarifies things for you, but please desist from trying to add your material to the article wile this talk page discussion is in progress.Achar Sva (talk) 02:42, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Your claim that other written Gospels existed prior to the canonical ones does not conflict with the existence of oral tradition or eyewitness involvement in it. Indeed, your quote notes that the oral traditions was 'still-current' by the time the Gospels were formed. Your edit summary claiming "the consensus is that all the gospels rely largely on written mazterial" is clearly false, as Chris Keith attests:

...there remains considerable disagreement among Q advocates regarding what exactly Q was...Some consider Q a literary product, while others consider it subliterary. There is also disagreement over its stages of development, how scholars are to reconstruct those stages, how those stages relate to particular socio-historical circumstances, and even whether the early stages might actually be oral tradition.

...there is no incontrovertible evidence that the Jesus tradition circulated in these forms prior to the textualization of Mark's Gospel. Therefore, although I do not deny the possibility of pre-Markan written Jesus tradition, I affirm a robust interaction of oral, and written tradition before, during, and after Mark's textualization...I nevertheless commence with Mark's Gospel as the first clear instance of narrativized Jesus tradition in the written medium.

^[1]

Keith, C. (2020). The Gospel as Manuscript: An Early history of the Jesus Tradition as material artifact. page=75-77.

Instead, James Dunn notes that scholars largely agree Jesus' life and sayings were preserved orally and that this oral transmission was the source of the canonical Gospels in his book The Oral Gospel Tradition pp 290-291.^[2] To put it simply, I argue that the Gospels we have today are the result of the textualization at least in large part of oral traditions ultimately originating from and shaped by contemporaries of Jesus, alongside the necessary interaction with the present of the Christian churches where they were written, and the academy agrees with this.

Your claim that I am pushing an "extreme Evangelical hypothesis" is simply not true. All my sources are highly respected mainstream scholars who publish with mainstream academic presses. van Os was with T&T Clark, and Alan Kirk quoted him as well. EP Sanders was a professor at Duke and revolutionized scholarship around Paul, the historical Jesus, and Second Temple Judaism, an extraordinary feat. Helen Bond (University of Edinburgh) claimed she "can't imagine any book, or course, or even conversation about Jesus that doesn't start-and often end-with the work of E.P. Sanders". Samuel Byrskog is professor at the University of Lund (not an Evanglical seminary) and was the President of the Swedish Academy of Biblical Studies from 2003 to 2008 and chaired seminars at SNTS. Dale Allison (Princeton Theological Seminary), who has nothing to do with my eyewitness claim, though you deleted him nevertheless, is a leading historical Jesus scholar - Chris Keith actually called him the best scholar alive today on a podcast, which I can link if you would like. I could go on and defend every source I edited in, but this should suffice.

Summary: My edits concerning eyewitnesses and oral tradition are academically mainstream and consistent with the view the final written Gospels were written by noneyewitnesses, as is the consensus, while your claims about written Gospels before the canonical Gospels being the consensus neither conflict with my edits nor are necessarily true. I strongly argue that your removal of my content is misguided. Silverfish2024 (talk) 03:24, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to Talk. First, you say that I claim that were written gospels before the canonicals, but I made no such claim. I'm at a loss as to where you get this idea.

Second, you seem to be pushing the idea that the four gospel-writers relied on eyewitness accounts. This is not the consensus, which is as set out in the dot-points copied above - eyewitness accounts lay in the distant background, but the writers were getting this at second or third or fourth hand. They were also quite happy to simply make things up, such as the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. Disentangling the oldest layers from those that came later is probably the major occupation of modern technical biblical study today.

Third, my problem with your edits is that they simplify a very complex picture, giving the quite erroneous impression that the gospels are based on direct eyewitness testimony. Only the most extreme evangelicals would support this view. Therefore, leave the article as it is, unless you can improve it. Achar Sva (talk) 08:22, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

You had an edit summary claiming "the consensus is that all the gospels rely largely on written mazterial"; whether they were some sort of proto-Gospel or a sayings source or something else was not made clear. Your points clearly mention written proto-gospels though. I agree the current most popular view in scholarship is that the Gospels' writers were not eyewitnesses (tradition also implies Mark and Luke were not eyewitnesses, interestingly), but there is nothing in your points that suggests this (it is found elsewhere in the Wiki article). Furthermore, your points cannot be consensus since Keith clearly demonstrates the disagreement found among scholars on the pre-Gospel traditions and the lack of evidence for a written tradition. It simply shows what Delbert Burkett advocated in 2002. Of course I do not wholly (or even largely) disagree with him, but I do not see how this can be consensus. Your points do not support your assertions about eyewitnesses laying in the "distant background".

The consensus is the oral transmission ultimately began with and involved eyewitnesses; how else could one claim Jesus existed? My claim cited Byrskog, who I demonstrated is not only a reliable source but highly prominent in the scholarly community, and I cited Anthony Le Donne as well. As Ehrman notes in <ens>Did Jesus Exist?</ens> (2012):

...they [The Gospels and other written traditions] were based on oral traditions that had already been in circulation for a long time, how far back do these traditions go? Anyone who thinks that Jesus existed has no problem answering the question: they ultimately go back to things Jesus said and did while he was engaged in his public ministry, say, around the year 29 or 30...

^[3]

To be clear I do not share Ehrman's view on oral traditions, but this statement is very much in line with most historical Jesus scholars. There should be no doubt the Gospels are connected to memory of Jesus.

My edit explains the traditions behind the Gospels that they used. The Gospels do not appear like direct eyewitness testimony but rather a community textualization, as Alan Kirk notes, but that does not mean they are wholly disconnected from Jesus. I simply noted the role of eyewitnesses, not that they were the sole factor.

Getting to the crux of the issue, the problem is that you argued my edits were based on unreliable sources and against consensus, but it is obvious they are reliable and that the consensus you cited is both not truly a consensus and does not conflict with my edits.

You also removed other edits unrelated to pre-Gospel traditions or eyewitnesses, and you have not justified these. This is the main issue of my talk, not discussion on how close the Gospels are to the Jesus of history. Silverfish2024 (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

This is only tangential to the main issue, but your view that the Gospels were happy to simply invent things conflicts with the general scholarly view that the Gospels reworked what they believed were the memories of Jesus. Additionally, Paul attests to Jesus's descent from Abraham and King David (Le Donne 2018 p=72).^[4] Scholarship is moving away from attempts to identify the oldest layer of traditions as well as finding hypothetical sources in favor of understanding the canonical Gospels themselves and hypothesizing about what historical circumstance would have led them to write what they do. Disentangling the supposed oldest layers is unfeasible. Silverfish2024 (talk) 17:44, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Silverfish2024, what you're doing here is discussing the article topic, which is not what Wikipedia is for - no one cares for your view, or mine, or those of any other editor. What the Talk page is for is discussing improvements to the article. Let's try to keep to that.

I deleted the following passages from the article, all added by you. The first is:

• [The gospels were probably written between AD 66 and 110], "which puts their composition likely within the lifetimes of various eyewitnesses, including Jesus's own family."

The material between square brackets was the end of the sentence in the original article, the material after that, in quotes, is you addition. Someone born in, say, AD10, would be dead by AD80 at the latest, especially given the short life-spans of Galilean peasants of the time, but the problem here is not so much the actuarial tables as the implication that the gospel-writers were travelling to Palestine, tracking down eyewitnesses, and recording their accounts. This is not the consensus among modern scholars. That consensus is given in our article in the section headed Composition and sourced from Delbert Burkett's Introduction to the New Testament and the Origins of Christianity, published 2002 (see above in this thread). That puts oral traditions at the beginning of a complex process that your edit glosses over. This is why I deleted it - it's simplistic and therefore misleading.

Your second addition is this:

• [Almost certainly none were by eyewitnesses, and all are the end-products of long oral and written transmission "(which did involve eyewitnesses)." Here you've added the clause in brackets about eyewitnesses - you seem to have an obsession with the subject. I don't see that this adds anything to what's already there, and again it gives the reader the misleading impression that the gospel writers were interviewing eyewitnesses. There's no evidence for this, but the overwhelming opinion of scholars is that they were relying on written sources. Matthew and Luke, for example, rely heavily on Mark and on Q, Mark had his own largely written sources (the Passion Narrative is well known), and John seems to have, had his own sources, which, whatever they were, were not depositions from eyewitness.
• Your third addition is this:

[The Gospel of Mark probably dates from circa AD 66–70, Matthew and Luke around AD 85–90, and John AD 90–110,] "which puts their composition likely within the lifetimes of various eyewitnesses, including Jesus's own family." Apart from the fact that this paragraph is about dates, which makes this insertion gratuitous, we have again this obsession with eyewitnesses and the implication that the gospel-writers were relying heavily on eyewitness reports. And again I have to stress that this is not the consensus of scholars regarding their composition.

Your fourth addition:

• [Most scholars agree that none were written by eyewitnesses to the Historical Jesus,] "though most scholars view the author of Luke-Acts as an eyewitness to Paul." Most scholars do NOT regard Acts as the work of a companion/eyewitness to Paul - your source, Craig Keener, does, but he represents the minority view, and quite a small minority. A case can be made that the "we" passages are from a companion, but that's as far as most scholars would go, and that's questionable.
• "Alan Kirk praises Matthew in particular for his "scribal memory competence" and "his high esteem for and careful handling of both Mark and Q", which makes claims the latter two works are significantly theologically or historically different dubious." What on Earth is "scribal memory competence"? It can't mean that he's working from memory, since your source explicitly mentions the way the Matthew-author uses Mark and Q. That Mark and Q have significant differences amounting to contradictions is pretty well universally accepted, by the way. Unfortunately I can't access your source, Alan Kirk, so can you provide a link? Otherwise I can go up to the library of St Mark's seminary, which is not far away, but an online link would be useful.

I think I've covered them all. The general message is that you're obscuring the academic consensus in favour of the ultra-fundamentalist project of trying to redefine the gospels as products of a curated oral tradition. That began (pace Bultmann) quite recently, as a reaction to the Jesus-was-a-myth movement - the oralists were saying that the Jesus tradition was reliable because the ancient world had strict structures in place for preserving the words and acts of revered teachers, especially ones who were claimed to be sons of gods (Jesus wasn't the only son of God around at the time). The idea enjoyed some popularity for a while, but has now been dropped by mainstream scholars (not by fundamentalists like Keener). So that's why I deleted your additions - but I'd like that link to Alan Kirk, I'm genuinely curious to see what he's talking about. Achar Sva (talk) 05:13, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

• "The gospels were probably written between AD 66 and 110, which puts their composition likely within the lifetimes of various eyewitnesses, including Jesus's own family."

This is supported by van Os's analysis and EP Sanders's introduction. If you have opposing sources, you need to post them yourself. The average lifespan in the Roman Empire for people who survived to their teens was 48-54 according to Saller's Book Patriarchy, Property and death in the Roman Family, and we can expect many more to survive long after this all the way to the end of the First Century.

• "Someone born in, say, AD10, would be dead by AD80 at the latest, especially given the short life-spans of Galilean peasants of the time"

Do you have any sources for this claim? Van Os has disproven this, so I do not see the importance.

My claim is that the traditions the Gospel-writers accessed was shaped in large part by eyewitnesses, not necessarily that they interviewed them themselves. Your Burkett quote actually both confirms that oral traditions were continuing throughout the time of the Gospels' composition, not simply the beginning of the process.

• "Gospels formed by combining proto-gospels, written collections, and still-current oral tradition"

I already disproved your assertion that the overwhelming majority of scholars agree the Gospels rely on written sources. Keith mentions that belief in hypothetical sources si declining in recent scholarship (The Gospel as Manuscript pp=142).

Most scholars do indeed view Luke as an eyewwitness to Paul. I cited James Dunn and Joseph Fitzmyer's Yale Anchor Bible Commentary. These are some of the greatest scholars Bible studies has seen recently.

You removed my references to Allison, Le Donne, and Keith as well. After three talk messages you still have not covered this. Your characterization of Bultmann as advocating for a reliable oral tradition is untrue; he was highly skeptical about what we could know about the historical Jesus, and most modern scholars are more confident than him. The idea that ancient Jewish oral tradition was reliable actually probably originates from Harald Riesenfeld and Gerhardsson in the mid-twentieth century after Bultmann, if I recall correctly, and while the latter's theories are not completely supported by scholarship, his actions have helped revolutionize studies in oral tradition in the New Testament to this day. Silverfish2024 (talk) 05:45, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I apologise if I removed some of your sources, it wasn't intentional. It seems we agree on quite a lot - Jesus was real, and, most importantly, the gospels are based on the memories of those who knew him, Unfortunately that 's not the impression your edits give. By harping on eyewitnesses you make it seem that the gospels are based on direct eyewitness testimony. If that's not your intention, please let me know. If it is what you think, what are your sources? Achar Sva (talk) 06:01, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the apology. It is greatly appreciated, and I am glad that our views are not so far apart as they seem. My view is that oral tradition was generally freer than the strict Rabbinic memorization model of Gerhardsson, though I'm sure there were multiple modes of transmission that led to the Gospels. My claim about eyewitnesses chiefly concerns the traditions passed on before they finally arrived and were reconfigured by the Gospel writers, and my source is Byrskog, whom I cited earlier. My sources for the claim that the oral tradition goes back to the Historical Jesus (I'm not sure I put this in the article though) are Dunn and Ehrman's works, which I cited earlier in the talk page, and from both works it seems that this is shared by most New Testament scholars, perhaps even indeed a consensus. The article makes clear that most scholars view the final Gospels as not written by eyewitnesses already, so I simply wished to note how the Gospels came to be and how they might relate to the history they at least attempt to portray. Silverfish2024 (talk) 06:24, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

@Adam Davis 83: regarding your repeated addition of Robyn Faith Walsh, diff, edit-summary

Reinserting my edit because contrary to the person who undid my last edit, the gospels being only the product of literate elites is not a minority view. The larger consensus of Classicists outweighs the minority view of NT scholars.

and diff, edit-summary

Reinstated my edits that conform to the Wikipedia standard: Wikipedia presents fringe and marginal perspectives only in contexts where there is 'substantial reliably sourced scholarship'. The sources I cite are reliably sourced scholarship published by Harvard and Cambridge and Mohr Siebeck. Do not delete this edit unless evidence can be produced showing that the cited publications are not reliable scholarship published by respected academic institutions.

which changed

All are the end-products of long oral and written transmission (which did involve eyewitnesses).^[1][2]

into

Some consider the gospels the end-products of long oral and written transmission (which did involve eyewitnesses).^[1][3] However, within Classical studies it is agreed that complex literate works were only produced by literate elites and not illiterate oral communities ^[4][5][6] and the Jewish literacy rate was well below the 10-15 percent estimated for Roman society.^[7]

this is quite problmatic, for several reasons:

• Walsh has been discussed before, Talk:Gospel/Archive 6#Robyn Faith Walsh, Talk:Gospel/Archive 7#Robyn Faith Walsh #2; the consensus was not to include this publication, though there is a Wikipedia-article on this book, The Origins of Early Christian Literature.
• "Some consider" is editorializing; it is not "some," it is the mainstream consensus.
• The line "All are the end-products of long oral and written transmission (which did involve eyewitnesses)" does not imply that the gospels were written by illiterates.
• Adding Woolf and Harris to this argument makes it no less an argument, that is, WP:OR; none of them refers to the Gospels.

Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 12:44, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

The publications I cite (Woolf and Harris) investigate writing abilities of the period in which the gospels were written. Therefore the publications are perfectly valid as evidence of literary capability. The issue concerning illiterates is a clarifying statement because most of the general public have been told the gospels are texts produced by illiterate communities. Adam Davis 83 (talk) 13:11, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

"Therefore": no, that's your conclusion, that is, WP:OR. Regarding most of the general public have been told the gospels are texts produced by illiterate communities, which sources says so - "most of the general public have been told" and "texts produced by illiterate communities"? I can answer the second part for you, lest we change "texts" to "traditions": James Dunn, The Oral Gospel Tradition, p.290-291. As solid as you can get. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 13:16, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

It's a tad unusual that we have not included a single reference to a rather significant recent study on the Gospels here. Simultaneously, we shouldn't take it as the standard opinion held by scholarship. Joshua Johnathan is right that the changes made by Adam Davis 83 are not the way to go. The book in question gets its due on a more pertinent article, Oral gospel traditions, so I'm more than content with that arrangement. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:32, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

@Adam Davis 83: this is the talkpage; discuss please, instead of reinserting your WP:OR and non-sensical statements like 'illiterate [...] written transmission'. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 18:11, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

I will continue to reinsert my edits for the following reasons: You have stated Walsh's book is original research that argues against the Biblical scholarship consensus of oral tradition and illiterate authorship and argues for elite literate authorship of the gospels. That is correct concerning Walsh's book. Therefore that means the consensus within Biblical scholarship is one of oral tradition and illiterate communities producing the gospels.

Your argument: "All are the end-products of long oral and written transmission (which did involve eyewitnesses)" does not imply that the gospels were written by illiterates". Actually it DOES imply that, for those not directly involved in Biblical scholarship. That's because that is what the current consensus is that Walsh is arguing against. The source YOU cite, Dunn, shows what the Biblical scholarship consensus is that Walsh argues against.

Therefore my edit for clarification, that is, my inserting the sentence beginning "The current consensus within Biblical scholarship is the gospels are the end-products of long illiterate..." is valid.

Also valid is my edit "However, within Classical studies it is agreed that complex literate works were only produced by literate elites. There is also currently no evidence illiterate oral communities could have written, copied, stored and distributed the NT texts sufficiently, as this would have been a very expensive undertaking requiring expensive and time consuming education."

Your argument: "Adding Woolf and Harris to this argument makes it no less an argument, that is, WP:OR; none of them refers to the Gospels."

My sources DO NOT have to refer to the gospels specifically, as the sources I cite investigate complex writing abilities at the time in question as a whole. That is why my edit of "Within Classical Studies..." is valid, as it is NOT WP:OR in the field of Classical Studies.

I have removed Walsh's publication because of Joshua's argument it is original research that is not the consensus. That AGAIN means the consensus within Biblical scholarship is one of "oral tradition" and illiterate authorship. Otherwise Walsh's work would NOT be considered original research by Joshua. Walsh's work is considered original ONLY in Biblical scholarship, not within Classical Studies as there is a divide between these academic fields, something Walsh comments on. Adam Davis 83 (talk) 10:20, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

@Adam Davis 83: I can essentially guarantee that further reinsertion of the content without consensus will result in you being blocked for edit warring. Your arguments seem to misunderstand that conclusions you draw from a text are not synonymous with the text itself drawing those conclusions. Wikipedia has very little room for original research. ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:34, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

You: "Your arguments seem to misunderstand that conclusions you draw from a text are not synonymous with the text itself drawing those conclusions."

I see neither you nor Joshua can provide evidence showing my statement to be wrong, that is that the current consensus in Biblical scholarship is the gospels are the result of oral and illiterate written transmission.

I have a honours degree in Classical Studies and I know very well the periods the sources I cite cover. One covers the period from the eighth century BCE until the fifth century CE, the other covers similar time periods. Are you telling me that the gospels were not written between the above periods?! The gospels are not a "special case", they are part of the literary capabilities that existed during the time periods discussed by the respected academics, capabilities or lack of that are well known in Classical Studies. Therefore all you and Joshua are doing is 'ganging up' on something trying to clarify the wikipedia article with accurate information, not original research. Adam Davis 83 (talk) 15:35, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

Congratulations with your honours degree; now try to u derstand wiki-policies. WP:OR means that you are drawing conclusions not given by the authors you cite. My comment "Adding Woolf and Harris to this argument makes it no less an argument, that is, WP:OR; none of them refers to the Gospels." is quite clear, I think. And regarding the gospels are the result of oral and illiterate written transmission, how do you picture 'illiterate written transmission'? Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 18:07, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

One other point: the Jewish literacy rate was well below the 10-15 percent estimated for Roman society - Hezser, Literacy in Roman Palestine - any idea by what kind of people the Gospels were supposedly written? Probably not. That's the reason we rely on WP:RS, not WP:OR. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 04:46, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

"and are thus unproblematic if not read anachronistically."

Perhaps this can be phrased in a way that doesn't contain a double negative (triple if you count 'ana-'). I don't see the need to save space by making such a compact, hard-to-parse phrase.

Could be something like "and thus are only a problem if read from a modern/historicist/factual perspective." ~2025-40856-96 (talk) 17:24, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

The gospel is not what later Christians say about it when they were all written between 60 and 100 AD (140 AD at the latest for one of them) These are the same people who were either kids or around during the time of Jesus when they were written that these gospels are being preached too. The opening paragraphs are inaccurate. ~2026-46987-8 (talk) 16:21, 18 March 2026 (UTC)